German bomb disposal unit members killed

An Allied bomb from World War II killed three German sappers when it exploded as they prepared to defuse it, police said yesterday, underlining the lethal danger still posed by such ordnance 65 years on.

The deadly blast occurred in the central city of Goettingen late on Tuesday, an hour before the three specialists were due to neutralise the 500-kilogramme device, which authorities said was likely British.

Builders had discovered it while working on the construction of a sports stadium in a densely populated area.

Another six members of the bomb disposal team were injured, police chief Robert Kruse told a news conference.

Bombs left over from the war are routinely discovered in Germany, with four found over the past two months in Berlin alone.

"We are deeply shocked by the horrible events last night," Lower Saxony State Interior Minister Uwe Schuenemann told the same news conference.

Mr Schuenemann said the men killed, aged 38, 52 and 55, were seasoned ordnance disposal experts: the two oldest had more than 20 years of experience and had defused up to 700 bombs.

Another team had successfully neutralised a bomb at the same site last week.

When the latest bomb was discovered on Tuesday, some 7,200 people living in the area were evacuated and the defusing operation was to have begun at about 2045 GMT.

But the bomb inexplicably went off an hour before while the disposal team was at the scene but had not started work.